


Two sides (of the same poker chip)

by himitsutsubasa



Category: Inception (2010)
Genre: M/M, Mal Was Right, it was all a dream
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-26
Updated: 2013-04-01
Packaged: 2017-11-22 11:09:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 2,972
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/609178
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/himitsutsubasa/pseuds/himitsutsubasa
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Eames wakes up.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Stand Alone

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [In Our Line of Work](https://archiveofourown.org/works/476912) by [enjambament](https://archiveofourown.org/users/enjambament/pseuds/enjambament). 

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Okay, this is the stand alone original. Skip to the next chapter for the incomplete "full" version of this work.

He breathed relief as air, and not blood filled his lungs. Dying of a punctured lung was not the best way to go.

It took only a second to realize that there was something spectacularly wrong with the picture.

Eames knew his London apartment by heart and knew that this wasn’t it. Or was it?

The Persian rug looked the same. His cherry wood shelves were dust free. He recalled that the plate on the shelf was a forgery and that he’d tossed it out a few years ago.

 And that’s the sickening moment that he realized that he did throw the plate out.

He threw it out exactly three years ago, when Arthur moved in and wanted a place for their gambling memorabilia collection.

Eames stood. Arthur. Where was his Arthur?

Another chill settled in. He looked down.

Sweats. He wore army sweats.

He hadn’t worn those in seven years, after he’d gotten them covered in blood and figured that the trouble wasn’t worth it.

He reached to the table and dug around the drawer for his poker chip. It wasn’t there. He thought back. He hadn’t had the chip as his totem until four years ago; just after that, he performed an inception. He had the sweats from seven years ago though.

He didn’t even know if he was old enough to drink.

The world swam around him. The floor was up. The windows showed alternating sky and earth. He put a hand on the chaise, he recalled that there was a missing wine stain, and breathed deeply.

Eames choked back a cry. It couldn’t possibly be.

He tripped over a pile of books, things on philosophy or whatever, as he worked his way to the restroom.

His feet touched cold tile, not the fresh granite that Arthur had installed after one assassin decided to smash up the floors. There was only one green tooth brush on the counter instead of a red and a blue one. He had the ugly paisley shower curtains that his mother gave him, not the striking glass shower door that he pushed a bloody Arthur through so many times.

He looked in the mirror.

Young. He looked so young. His features were hard lines. There wasn’t the slick heat that he radiated. He was a theater man and a soldier trying to coexist in the same body, not one that was acting as the other or vice versa.

Eames dug his fingers into his skin, trying, reaching, for the comfort of confidence and sarcasm.

He didn’t have any.

Thomas Eames, twenty-three and very lost, fell to his knees and sobbed.

* * *

Later, after sleepless nights and self-destructive chases across the world that ended in nothing, Eames sat on the subway in New York. He glanced over the paper as the train pulled out of the station.

February seventeenth.

To think, a year ago, he was on the exact same subway train kissing Arthur stupid after a job.

To think, nine years before that, he’d met Arthur, the very same, when he’d jumped aboard a random train to escape a tail.

He’d met the young and adventurous man he loved. Arthur, still snarky and definitely army, sent him on the greatest joyride of his life. He’d started by stealing America’s greatest treasure and setting him loose on the dream world.

No, he thought. That day is today. He looked at the date. Surely enough that was it. Come what may, he would know that date to his dying day.

And he’d died once already, so he knew that he’d know it in the afterlife too.

“Excuse me.” A young man in a tailored suit sat next to him. Eames, so wrapped in his thoughts, hadn’t even noticed the boy.

They sat in silence as the train left the stop.

“Un plaisir de vous revoir,” Eames offered.

The dark haired man chuckled.

“Votre français est mauvais, faussaire.”

Eames breathed deeply putting down the paper. He produced a disc from his hand, one that had previously been in the stranger’s pocket, and boggled at the sight.

It was a red plastic poker chip with his name painted on the edge in white.

He wouldn’t have to steal this time. From the look of it, Arthur was already free as the wind, and just as likely to be gone in the next. And Arthur was his.

Eames wrapped his hand over long fingers, sliding the plastic back into his lover’s hand.

“I’m glad you remembered.”

Arthur Darling, twenty years of age and looking all of sixteen, squeezed his hand in return.

“How could I forget?”


	2. False Bottom

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Okay, the expansion.

He breathed relief as air, and not blood filled his lungs. Dying of a punctured lung was not the best way to go.

It took only a second to realize that there was something spectacularly wrong with the picture.

Eames knew his London apartment by heart and knew that this wasn’t it. Or was it?

The Persian rug looked the same. His cherry wood shelves were dust free. He recalled that the plate on the shelf was a forgery and that he’d tossed it out a few years ago.

 And that’s the sickening moment that he realized that he did throw the plate out.

He threw it out exactly three years ago, when Arthur moved in and wanted a place for their gambling memorabilia collection.

Eames stood. Arthur. Where was his Arthur?

Another chill settled in. He looked down.

Sweats. He wore army sweats.

He hadn’t worn those in seven years, after he’d gotten them covered in blood and figured that the trouble wasn’t worth it.

He reached to the table and dug around the drawer for his poker chip. It wasn’t there. He thought back. He hadn’t had the chip as his totem until four years ago; just after that, he performed an inception. He had the sweats from seven years ago though.

He didn’t even know if he was old enough to drink.

The world swam around him. The floor was up. The windows showed alternating sky and earth. He put a hand on the chaise, he recalled that there was a missing wine stain, and breathed deeply.

Eames choked back a cry. It couldn’t possibly be.

He tripped over a pile of books, things on philosophy or whatever, as he worked his way to the restroom.

His feet touched cold tile, not the fresh granite that Arthur had installed after one assassin decided to smash up the floors. There was only one green tooth brush on the counter instead of a red and a blue one. He had the ugly paisley shower curtains that his mother gave him, not the striking glass shower door that he pushed a bloody Arthur through so many times.

He looked in the mirror.

Young. He looked so young. His features were hard lines. There wasn’t the slick heat that he radiated. He was a theater man and a soldier trying to coexist in the same body, not one that was acting as the other or vice versa.

Eames dug his fingers into his skin, trying, reaching, for the comfort of confidence and sarcasm.

He didn’t have any.

Thomas Eames, twenty-three and very lost, fell to his knees and sobbed.

<hr>

When he finally pulled himself together (because he wouldn’t be Eames if he didn’t pull himself together), he tried to remember everything from before.

That enlightening information sent him on a mad dash for anything he could pawn and a suitcase.

See, what he realized was that the whole thing was government funded. Project Morpheus, that was. So, if the whole thing was government funded (read “so secret that you were shot for even breathing the wrong direction”) then he should leave quickly. Eames had no idea how long he’d been asleep, Arthur always handled that information, but if the lack of consumable items in his refrigerator said anything, it was more than a week.

He did find some pawn-able items (his guitar and a painting that looked like a Rembrandt) and a few tools of the trade (special ink pens and a few plates that he will never admit to owning). The ones he did want to keep were stuffed into a guitar case (sadly, he didn’t own a Prada suitcase, yet) along with a few necessities (underwear, toothbrush, condoms, and all the money he had). 

He booked five flights on different cards and ducked out to sell them to the local drug dealer (none were linked to his credit score, thank heavens) for cash. 

Then, he packed up the PASIV and headed out the door.

He was so glad that he did then. It was as he raced through the Grater London Metropolitan area in his little yellow buggy (not originally his per se, but he repossessed it) that he ran across a government car headed in the direction of his flat. A little creative driving (him) and ducking (him again) got him out of that awkward engagement. A little more creative driving got him back on the fastest route to the train station.

Where is the last place a British man would go?

France. It may have been a stereotype, but Eames did have a thing against the French (his ex-girlfriend specifically). So, where would he go?

Russia. (No. he would go to France, you dolts. That was the purpose of the past two paragraphs!)

The London streets flew by and Eames kept his eyes on every dark, unmarked car (yes, MI6 was still using dark, unmarked cars, the idiots). About five blocks away, he ditched the car and started walking. In the vicinity, he knew, were a handful of pawn shops. He sold what he could and tried not to grimace when they offered him what he knew was a scam price (and they called him a thief, the bloody heathens). He did sell his guitar, though not without explaining that he was running form the government and there were MI6 agents on his tail.

The proprietor laughed so hard, he almost had an asthma attack. (The place was so dusty that there were dust bunnies on the counter.) Eames did get a pretty penny for his guitar. The man handed him a card with his money.

“Your tattoos, mate, are crap. See this guy. He’s got some nice ink.” Eames took the shiny card advertising half-off all tattoos and noted the place was in the direction of his destination. He also had a rather brilliant idea.

An hour later, Eames hopped on a train to Paris with a map in hand and itch on his arm. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Firstly, I wrote the first chapter after seeing a few people on the meme ask "What if Mal was right?" So then, chapter one was written. There were so many things I wanted to put in but writer's block has been screwing me over incessantly. I gave up actually in the first chapter. The second is a mirror of "In Our Line of Work". Though, I loved that one, but my head spun it's plot out of control. 
> 
> In my head version of that work, it would also diverge in the case that they died in a car accident on a job. Then there was the matter of Ariadne being older than Arthur and Eames (I'd put out 26 as a estimate, and she is French). Saito was the heir to the fortune and around the same age as Arthur. He's also dabbling a bit in the black market, hence why he's in that universe. Also, Arthur is completely free of Mal and Cobb. He only knows them from Facebook. Cobb has no memory what-so-ever and he's a little confused (seeing as he is an architect). Yusuf is a drug dealer specializing in heroin. Eames is MI6 gone MIA (and there may have been mentions of 007 in mind). Arthur would have been a little more destructive, but also would have virtually put together dream share himself. They were also supposed to meet farther along. I was thinking about ten years along. Eames already set himself up as a forger, but he's got a thing for New York, and Arthur's got an empire, but missed his Eames.
> 
> I do hope that I'll eventually get over this stupid block and write out the original plot I had in mind. The story I had in mind was supposed to be longer and involve a lot more of Eames' perspective on the matter. When that time comes around, I'll wipe out the second chapter and post something that I am proud of. Until then, bear with a terrible summary and short rewrite as chapter two. All rights to that go to the original creator. I just own the changes there and mentioned above.


	3. For Real This Time

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Chapter two of the real deal.

Eames muddled about through Paris watching his back and using everything Shakespeare ever taught him. Firstly, if someone bites their thumb at you, run away. Secondly, don’t murder people for the crown of Scotland.

Okay, not so much, but who told the sky to rain on his arrival. It was like the heavens knew he was going to be sorely disappointed by what he would find and therefore should provide the perfect ambiance.

“Damn, bad weather isn’t it?” Eames just nodded ignoring the other patron. Female, he surmised, and older than himself. He could feel the brush of a silk scarf against him as she bumped into him when the train jolted.

He could hear a smile in her voice. “You wouldn’t happen to know the date?”

“It’s July 13,” he muttered, pulling on an American accent. A small hand clasped on his shoulder.

“Thank you, Eames.”

The said man turned, hand ready to clench around her neck and oh…

Dark hair, now much longer, tumbled around a slightly round baby face. Her eyes danced with a sweetened kind of mirth and her fingers drummed against the strap of her bag. A pale red, not pink but a real, dusky red, scarf wrapped around her neck.

She smiled; a warm familiar heat in the battered car. “Ça va, Eames?”

He felt his jaw go slack as he took in the solid, earthly specter in front of him. “Ariadne?”

“The one and only!” She pulled him into a hug. For all the bulk in his forearms, he felt her squeeze to his core. She kissed his cheeks. “No one else would name their daughter a mouthful like that.”

Ariadne. Ariadne was real. Wait… A cold feeling crept up into his chest. All that time, the drive, the parlor, he’d convinced himself that that was it. There was no one else. The whole point of the project was to see if it worked. See if he could actually remember his dreams.

He shoved. The red scarfed woman almost toppled backwards into other passengers, before she righted herself.

She blinked owlishly at him. He could see the differences, but he couldn’t tell what they were. Was she taller?  Did she hold her head differently?

“Eames?”

Was it the silk scarf compared to her polyester ones? The way her high-top boots accented her height? Maybe it was how in he never remembered the tap0tap-tap of fingers, but there they were.

The train stilled and stopped. He felt a hand on his shoulder. Was it shaking or was he? Why was the earth falling? Was the dream collapsing? “Eames? What wrong? You’re breathing hard.”

He rubbed his eyes. “I can’t remember, Ari.”

Ariadne froze, her hand on his cuff, as the passengers milled about around them. Eames pressed his hands against hers and squeezed. He breathed. In through the nose, out through his mouth. In, out. In, out. In, out.

She exhaled with him and squeezed back. “I know a café. We can talk there.”

“Here, take this.” Ariadne dropped a light blue paper bag on the café table. Eames nursed his cold coffee and wondered whose idea it was to sit outside. Damn… he couldn’t remember that either.

_“How do I know you’re real?” he asked her as she hauled him out of the station._

_She smiled bitterly at him, pulling and nudging him along in equal parts. “Do you remember waking up?"_

“What is it?” he obligingly opened the bag.

“Oh, Ari…”

She sipped her cold coffee and bit into a, still slightly warm, Danish. “I’m sorry, Eames. That’s the only color they had.” She winced as he turned the brown Moleskine notebook over in his hands.

He brushed his hands along the cover. “No, that’s fine.”

_“Arthur!”_

_“What is it, Eames?”_

_“I brought you something.”_

_“It better not be a… oh, wow, that’s…”_

_“’Very altruistic of you, Eames, knightly even?’”_

_A soft blow to his arm._

_“I was going to say, ’Very kind of you’. Thank you.’”_

_“No imagination, Arthur. I wonder how you have come so far.”_

_“I wonder how you manage to squander all the good will of a present.”_  

“… And that should be it. Eames?"

He blinked. Ari’s eyes stared into his concern etching her features. “What? Sorry?”

She tapped the note book with her gloved fingers. “I said, write out what you remember.”

“What? Like a dream journal?” He eyed the notebook. There was something he could put in there. He could fill up the pages with just that. That and drawings, over and over, he could fill that notebook, but with what? What was he going to fill it with again?

 “More like a Somnacin Journal. It stops forgetting.” Ariadne tapped the strap of her messenger bag. “I’ve done it Eames. It works. I even got you a tricolor pen. You can switch colors for wherever you are.”

“Thank you, Ari. You really shouldn’t have.” He glanced at the street and his blood chilled. Cameras. Traffic cameras. “No, you really shouldn’t have.”

Damn.

Ari grabbed his hand. “Eames, what is it?”

“I shouldn’t be here.” He shoved the bag into his duffel and slung it over his shoulder. He dodged waiters and patrons trying to get to the street. He needed to move. He needed to get away. He needed to…

“Eames?”  Ari tugged on his bag. Eames stared into her narrowed eyes and rubbed his face. Ari, he couldn’t hurt pretty, intelligent Ari. It just…

“Look, the government is after me.” He kept walking. The least she could do was keep up then if she wanted to hear the car crash of calamity that was his life.

“What?” So much for keeping up.

Eames rounded a corner. Was there any place? Any place at all in Paris that didn’t have cameras? Was it really a thing? Really? “Project Morpheus, do you remember anything from what I told you in the dream?”

_“What about you, Ari? How did you get pulled into this?”_

_“Research project. Professor Miles told me there was a position and someone with my expertise would be helpful.”_

_“Your expertise?”_

Ari nodded lengthening her strides to match his step. “Yeah, lots. You mean they’re after you?”

“I failed to report in after waking up.” He thought back to what he did and didn’t do. He’d blame it all on nerves and ten years of his life turning out to be the greatest lie ever constructed. No biggie.

“What?” Ari’s face turned something close to frustrated.

Eames winced. Soft rain tumbled around them. “And I might have left a note saying I went out for some milk and would be back in fifteen minutes.” Great timing. Just right. Perfect.

“Eames!” The scolding left her voice and she sighed more than yelled.

Eames dodged a cyclist and kept pace. “Anyway, they’re after me. You could get hurt, Ari.”

_“Mapping social and political trends on a grand scale.”_

_“You mean, you knew it was a dream?”_

_“No, but I knew I was doing something right. I was fixing things.”_

_“What about Cobb? Were you fixing him too?”_

A hand tugged on his sleeve. Her eyes, hardened and cold, met his.

“Eames, come on. It’s a dead end that way. Follow me.”


End file.
